Urban laboratories: What we can learn from airports

If you want to know about the cities of the future, you might want to take a closer look at airports. Despite being one of the youngest architectural typologies, airports are some of the few buildings with the size, complexity and traffic to emulate cities. At airports, systemic urban conditions are magnified, making them interesting case studies for urban design.

It isn’t easy to keep up with the enormous demand for air travel. The pace of change often makes airport projects obsolete shortly after they are built. Airport architects are challenged